All posts tagged: Vietnam

Vietnamese Shaking Beef

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It’s been a minute since The Koala and I visited Vietnam. We visited in January 2011, completely unprepared for the winter. We got off the plane in the early, early hours of the morning, were accosted by motorcycle drivers, dropped our bags off at our hotel and went in search for our first meal on foot. We happened upon a little noodle shop that was packed first thing in the morning. We figured that any place that was packed with locals for breakfast would be a good bet. Once we were seated, we realised the shop only sold eel. Options included fried eel, eel soup, eel noodles or eel porridge. Every item on the menu was under $2NZ. And that’s how we ended up eating eel for our first meal in Vietnam. We couldn’t speak a lick of Vietnamese but we got through our trip by pointing and our drawing skills helped us out more than once. Still, we made some incredible food memories and I still think fondly upon the Vietnamese way of cooking and eating. …

The secret to making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Vietnamese spring rolls (or summer rolls) are one of my favourite things to eat and I always order this as starter when we visit a Vietnamese restaurant. The light, refreshing roll contrasts with a punchy sauce and I feel like I never get enough of these things. The beauty of making food at home is you can have as many pieces as you like. You can eat as many as you like for a main course without confusing your poor waiter. I’ve made these rolls once before but it was a messy failure. My mistake was to soak the rice paper in hot water and for too long. By the time you roll up, it disintegrates and you can forget about trying to eat them with any ounce of dignity. I have found the secret which I will share with you below. When we were eating in Hanoi, Vietnam at the start of this year, I noticed that the rice paper rolls were a tad under softened. That led me to believe that the rolls …

A Dinner inspired by South East Asia

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  I had a hankering for the stuff we ate while in South East Asia. Hot, sour and savoury soups, banana pancakes were eaten in balmy countries. But what about on a cold winter’s night? I thought they would translate quite well so I made a brothy soup with noodles with some nice sirloin steak. I made this up on the fly using some of the flavours I enjoyed in South East Asia. This was followed by a dessert of asian-inspired banana pancakes with melted chocolate. Yum. Bok choy is cheap and it is super easy to grow. I know this because I’ve grown it before. But at $0.50 for a bag of 2 or 3 bok choy at my local Chinese supermarket, I don’t bother to grow my own. So easy to prepare, just wash and slice into quarters lengthwise. Good rabbit food too. When we have bok choy, Tofu the rabbit also enjoys bok choy. Beef Noodle Soup Beef Ingredients 1 piece of sirloin steak enough for 2 (200-300g) A little sesame oil …

Breakfast buffets in S-E-A

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We had a few buffet breakfasts while traveling in South East Asia. These photos are the only evidence. The rest I’m afraid, has been destroyed devoured. Cafe Deco Macao The Venetian, Macau Cafe Deco offers 24/7 dining and seats 1000 diners. Breakfast at any of The Venetian restaurants was included with our suite so we picked the buffet option at Cafe Deco Macao. My breakfast was a croissant, a strawberry danish, smoked salmon, sausage, salami, ham, samosa, curried rice, chickpeas, corn, tomatoes, mushrooms, hashbrown, scrambled eggs, bacon, fried egg. I sampled about 10% of the breakfast dishes on offer. There were breakfast foods from many different cuisines including Chinese, Japanese and Indian. The buffet station stretched around the edge of this 32,000 ft² dining area and it’s possible to get lost on your way back to your table. I know this because I got lost! We begin with the most epic breakfast buffet I have ever laid eyes on. Everything about this hotel was decadent and over the top. 40 levels, 3000 suites, an indoor canal, …

Halong Bay: The Beauty & The Eats

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On our second day in Vietnam, we spend the morning on a bus to Halong Bay. We didn’t think were would go to Halong Bay as we only had 2 and half free days in Hanoi, but after 1 full day in The Old Quarter, we decided we’d had enough of the hustle and bustle and booked ourselves onto a Halong Bay tour. Halong translates to Descending Dragon and thousands of limestone peaks jut out from the green sea in an area of about 1500km2. Two million years in the tropical climate have created these unique formations. It is a tourist destination, but for good reason: it really is beautiful. Pick up from our hotel is early and every seat on the bus is accounted for. They have those aisle seats that fold down so that when all bums are on seats, there are no aisles at all. If someone in the back row needs to get out, all 4 aisle row seats need to get up, fold their chair up and get out in order …

Eating a snake and drinking cat poo coffee

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Friends of snakes, look away now. Killing and eating a snake was always going to be an interesting experience. I’d read about it online and I had a fair idea of what to expect. We talked to our hotel owner and receptionist about it and they called a taxi for us. Unfortunately the taxi driver hadn’t been briefed and “Le Mat” which was the snake village didn’t seem to ring any bells. It was only after I drew and showed him a picture of snake while we gestured eating motions that he got it. “Ahhhh La Maaaat!”. All good. He drove us to a restaurant and he communicated to us that he would wait outside while we ate. It’s quite normal in SE Asia countries for taxi drivers to wait outside for you. Something that is unheard of in New Zealand unless you’re using an ATM or something super quick. Taxis are very cheap in Vietnam and our return trip including the hour wait while we ate,  cost only 94,000VND / $6NZ / $4.50US. I’d read about …

Foodie Treasures from the South East

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Some of the foodie treasures I picked up from south east asia. I’ve always wanted a mortar and pestle and making my own green curry from scratch in a cooking school in Chiang Mai made the want a need. Weasel coffee from Vietnam, table cloth, coconut wood salad servers and serving spoon from Thailand I also gifted a package to my work because they were fantastic about letting me holiday for 10 weeks. In their package there was the same chili sauce, weasel coffee, Sabah Tea (from Borneo) and coconut salad servers. I coveted this Thai/Laos style BBQ cooker, a chopping board and a cleaver, but alas, these were not to be found in the usual tourist markets. If anyone knows of a Thai BBQ restaurant in Auckland or where to buy a cooker from, let me know.

We are home.

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It has been an epic 65 days of traveling, eating, drinking, experiencing and adventuring with my husband The Koala. Along the way, we’ve traveled with friends and family, met up with old friends and made new friends. We visited 7 countries and stayed in 18 different places in south east asia. Brunei, Malaysia (Borneo), Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It’s been exotic and surreal. Being back in front of my mac, in our lounge (looking just the way we left it) it feels like the last 2 months happened to someone else. In the 2 months we’ve been away, I “cooked” only 3 times. A half day cooking class in Chiang Mai, and if you count it as cooking, we had local BBQ where you cook raw ingredients at your table at a restauarant- we did this 2 times (Vang Vieng, Laos and Koh Phangan, Thailand). All other meals – I’m talking an average of 3 meals a day – were eaten out. That’s 192 meals right there! I didn’t photograph every single …